Your estate plan will likely be among the most important endeavors you will undertake over the course of your lifetime. Ideally, your estate plan should protect and provide for you and your loved ones, both while you are alive and after you are gone. It only makes sense, therefore, to avoid making mistakes during the creation of your plan. To help you, we will discuss the top four estate planning mistakes to avoid making.
- Waiting Too Long to Start Planning. One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to the need for estate planning is the idea that you need to reach a certain point in your life or you need to achieve a certain material success before the need for an estate plan really kicks in. While it is true that as your family and your estate grow, you will need to build on your basic estate plan to accommodate that growth, every adult should have at least a basic estate plan in place. A basic plan, usually consisting of a Last Will and Testament and one or two other estate planning documents, prevents you from leaving behind an intestate estate should something happen to you. It also allows you to decide who will oversee the probate of your estate and provides you with the only official opportunity you have to let a judge know who you would want to be the guardian for your minor children if one is ever needed. Don’t put off creating your estate plan.
- Appointing the Wrong People to Fiduciary Positions. Throughout your estate plan you will likely have several opportunities to appoint people to fiduciary positions. The Executor of your estate, the Trustee of a trust, and an Agent in a Power of Attorney are all examples of fiduciary positions. While your initial thought may be to appoint a spouse, friend, or family member to one of these positions based solely on the fact that you trust that person, take some time to think about the duties and responsibilities of the position before making your final choice. Fiduciary positions often require legal and financial knowledge and experience that a spouse/friend/family member does not have, making them a poor choice for the position after careful thought.
- Failing to Review and Revise Your Estate Plan. Your estate plan is not something you should create and then forget about if you want a plan that works. Just as your life does not remain static, neither should your estate plan. As you grow and change, so should your plan. During your working years you should routinely review and revise your estate plan every three to five years. Once you retire you can stretch that to every five to eight years. Certain life events also call for a more immediate revision of your estate plan. Marriage or divorce, for example, should prompt an immediate update to your plan as should things such as retirement, a move to a new state, the birth of a child, or the death of a fiduciary.
- Failing to Discuss Your Plan. Probate disputes can occur for numerous reasons; however, a common theme is surprise. When beneficiaries and/or heirs are surprised about the terms of an estate plan, their first reaction is often to contest the Will or otherwise initiate litigation. Discussing the basic terms of your plan ahead of time is one way to decrease the likelihood of disputes during the probate of your estate. If you don’t want to go that route because you believe it might cause disputes now, drafting a “Letter of Instruction” is another option. A Letter of Instructions is simply a letter that you include with your estate plan that includes additional information not found elsewhere in your plan. In this case, the letter might offer explanations for the decisions you made in your estate plan, making litigation less likely.
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Timothy P. Murphy is an estate planning and elder law attorney whose practice emphasizes helping people to build, preserve and pass on their wealth. He works with his clients to accomplish their goals while avoiding unnecessary court proceedings and minimizing or eliminating exposure to death taxes.
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